Speaking of mascots - Illinois State Univ. bullies high school into dropping their mascot

[jrish12]

You guys want to see some copyright infringement. Just take a look at all of these schools in Illinois.

http://www.athletics2000.com/members.aspx

It's not just college teams, but pro sports teams. I see the Detroit Lions logo, Vikings, Houston Rockets, Buccaneers, Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles.

All the schools/teams mentioned in that link that I know of:

Toledo
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Georgia Tech x 2
Miami-Ohio
K-State x 2
Detroit Lions
SMU
Mizzou x 2
Fresno St. x 2
ISU x 2
Minnesota Vikings
Notre Dame
New Orleans Saints
Illinois college
Lincoln College
Atlanta Falcons
Clemson

[cpacmel]

Notre Dame and ISU didn't make the copyright laws. But if they want to protect their copyrighted logos, they have to do abide by the rules.

[BUFanatic]

So that high school has had the nickname and logo for 44 years, and suddenly the people at Notre Dame are threatening to sic their lawyers on them? Why now after 44 years? I suspect it has something to do with the lousy start to Notre Dame's football season. I guess they are afraid people now might confuse them with the tiny high school in Kansas.

Here is the high school's website. They have removed all the images of the leprechaun-

http://www.chapmanirish.net/

http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/b...hschool-wp7383

They had no prior knowledge of the school's use of the mascot, it happened to show up when the HS got hit by the Tornado in the news. I want to know though, for all the Notre Dame High Schools in the country, are all the Fighting Irish and all logos that they use protected by Notre Dame?

ALSO What about the Metamora Redbirds!?!?! They ripped the NAME AND flipped the mascot!

[Da Coach]

Notre Dame and ISU didn't make the copyright laws. But if they want to protect their copyrighted logos, they have to do abide by the rules.

I know, I have heard this explanation a number of times before. But it just doesn't make sense. If it is somehow important to them to pursue copyright infringement legal action against every tiny school that uses a similar logo, then why are there dozens, and maybe even hundreds of other schools with the logo that are virtually the same as college and pro teams with copyrighted logos that they do not go after? Your explanation would make sense if they sent similar letters to all these small high schools and grade schools that have the same leprachaun logo, but they don't.
So using the same logic, just the fact that they do not pursue legal action against all these schools would seem to make the rare case when they do unnecessary.

Seneca HS right here in Illinois has an identical logo-

http://www.athletics2000.com/seneca/